ALLOW MY WORDS TO RESONATE

Persistence is key, I know this for a fact

When making a decision, I am always fast when I choose to act

Please let me be your main source of inspiration

When it comes to learning new skills from me, perceive it as education

I always work my hardest, I generate progress each day

No matter how desperate my situation becomes, I tell myself I'll be ok

Each day I try to transform into the best version of myself

This ensures I remain strong when it comes to my mental health

Since recovering from stage three cancer, I have this unique way I choose to see life

I am still here, my mind is so clear, no matter what, I know I'll survive

I possess so much gratitude, each day that passes I decide to reflect

Any negativity that tries to break in, my initial response is to deflect

I've struggled and I've suffered, I've been tortured by depression

It taught me to remain strong under pressure and made an immediate impression

I'm getting closer to my target, I'm striving for perfection

Forward steps are helping to guide me in the right direction

Positivity flows through my body and my mind

I'm on the trail of my illness and I'm not too far behind

I'm positive, I'm dedicated and I'm full of ambition

My main attribute is that I'm a master tactician

When people hear my poetry, I hope they can relate

Allow my words to resonate and aide your mental state

Before I entered my recovery, I was depressed and I was broken

I eventually found my inner strength and a warrior was woken

-Liam Kennedy

We Build Towers

We build towers

out of bits and debris of hopes and dreams

until they surpass us

and collapse beneath our feet.

I said before

that I'm not Rapunzel

but I am Rapunzel.

-clw

C. Ward

Take Me

I woke feeling I was in Van Morrison’s

song, Take Me Back.  I woke from dreams

of Mom doing our laundry with the wife,

Ruth, of our landlord in their basement 

on Mondays and hanging the clothes 

outside with wooden clothespins 

and watching the clothes blow in the wind

drying sometimes fast, sometimes slow.

And everyone was alive, felt, seemed 

real and I knew, then, I was dreaming

wondering what such a dream might

mean and I lingered in bed on the border

of waking and dreaming, torn between

the desire for each.  Dad asking, “A little

more coffee?” and now I am up, making

my coffee wondering where that voice

came from and thinking from the grave

which is six hours from here and how

even the voice of a ghost cannot carry

that far and think I must have slipped 

in time, that no dream can hold such

reality and I look outside to see the clothes

on the clothesline and see nothing.

Sigh, sip my coffee, see the signs that

I have slipped out of that time into 

what now is mine and whisper, “Take

me back.  Take me way back. . .”

-Byron Hoot

hootnhowlpoetry.com 

Cartographers

The drive back felt long,

as if the hour and forty 

minutes had multiplied,

the miles adding to themselves

as time and distance elongated

by recollections whole and fragmented.

I drove the roads I know and it 

was like digging in a mine where

someone was yelling, “Get out 

of there!” and I yelled back, “Not

yet!”  the exchange tinted with some

unknown but felt fear that later

might conclude by some logic

beyond my understanding though 

nothing I could deny.  I drove and drove

and drove.  Pulled into my driveway, 

an hour forty-five but it felt like time

out of eternity, that reckless disregard 

of time and place to be in what is called             

now, memories the cartographers used making

the map as I drove. They waiting as I got

out of the car, unlocked the front door 

and entered before I did.

 

-Byron Hoot

hootnhowlpoetry.com.

Lovechild

I am reconsidering the story of my aunt

born thirteen years after my mom.

She was a lovechild, my gram had said,

and also that she was not wanted.

It dawned on me the way dreams and words

sometimes simmer that she may not have

been grandad’s child.  That gram, for all

her control over everything, everyone 

had lost control like some teenage girl.

She told grandad he had rolled over

in the middle of the night, got on her,

fell back to sleep.  He didn’t know if

that might not be true.  What I know 

is my aunt always tried to fit, that she often 

wore a moo-moo, no bra, would lean

down to talk to me, beautiful white breasts

with pink nipples she may have wanted

me to touch and I did but didn’t.  That

if she was not her father’s child, she was

not that much of an aunt to me.

I have the .22 six-shooter she kept

by her bed at night in case she’d have 

to “shoot any preacher coming after me

in the night.”   Later,  I’d visit her in the nursing

home.  She’d ask accusingly, “You still have my gun?”

and fall asleep as I wondered if she was

dreaming gram’s memory.

 -Byron Hoot

https://hootnhowlpoetry.com/

Of Time and Eternity and Undulating Prayers

Seduction is always the seduction out of time,

fulfillment always in the moment.

 

This is how we are held by eternity and 

time.  We know the grip well.  Long to feel

it again when it is released.  Feel that freefall

into that abyss where we can grasp nothing

and nothing, no one reaches out. Until. 

 

We were made to be seduced and fulfilled.

And to pray whispered undulations, Again.

Enough is never enough.  

 

The midwife, whose hands first touch us, 

casts the spell of time and eternity into us.

 

The first word we speak, Yes.

-Byron Hoot

https://hootnhowlpoetry.com

Proof

I often see my mother when I look 

outside.  Her blue eyes first and then

her smile.  The way she stood – ready

to move, ready to stand firm.

I take her spirit in again and again.

The body dies, the spirit lives;

I believe this.  The proof?

The way I smile back at her.

-Byron Hoot

https://hootnhowlpoetry.com